Q&A with myself

Here are some questions I have been asked during my time in Marjah, Afghanistan:

Why did you want to come to Afghanistan?
My first motivation was Dan Morrison, a professor and friend from the University of Oregon, who initially wanted to make the trip. I thought if I was going to go to another war zone, what better way than to go with an accomplished photojournalist and maybe learn a few things. The second reason is that I believe that we as the American people have a right and responsibility to know what is going on in Afghanistan. Whether you agree with it or not we are a country at war and we should not let this fact slip away. As a journalist, I try to engage the civilian populace about the U.S. military and all the good and bad of Afghanistan. I can only bring home a snapshot of Marjah in two months, but at least I can say that I went and I told the story. That gives me a sense of purpose.

What will you do when you get home?

I will continue to work on the information I have gathered during my time here. I have some long term articles and multimedia projects I have been working on. I will also do some speaking engagements in Portland and Eugene. In December I am heading to New Zealand for a family reunion and in January and early February I am traveling to Bangladesh. I will continue working as a freelancer.

How does your family feel about your job?

My parents are very supportive, although I can tell that this embed in Afghanistan is causing them to worry a lot. Firefights and IEDs will do that, but every parent worries about their child over here.

Sitting

During my last week in Marjah I decide I want to go south, far, far, south into an area without Marine presence. The mission was to search this area. "It's either going to be like the apocalypse or really boring," said one Marine. So at 7 p.m. I boarded a vehicle and went off into the desert. Nineteen hours later the desert looked the same, flat and vacant. No gunshots, no IEDs, just silence and some camels wondering across the land. So what did we do? We sat, we joked, we played cards and I tried desperately to stay awake the whole time. It's all about solidarity out here. But as fate would have it I managed to find a comfortable position, with vest and helmet, and I passed out for a good two hours. Or as the Marines put it, I was drooling, hardcore. So as the young Marines stared out into the desert I snored, but what can I say I am a freakin' civilian.
The low point of the whole journey was at about 10 am, when I first had to go to the bathroom. Luckily we were headed back to the base, but of course the convoy stopped midway for another hour. One of the lead vehicles found an IED and so of course that became the priority and I debated over whether I wanted to pee in a bag. Turns out I can hold it for a long time.
So there I was, in a vehicle, in the desert and am I sorry? No. You don't know what a mission like this feels like, until you actually go out and sit there with the Marines. And so I lived and learned and it was good.

Bugs and Pizza

Some days I can wait for nightfall, for the too bright sky to dim and for the relief of cooler air. But as soon as the sky turns a darker blue the bugs come out, and the itching and annoyance of tiny bites kick in. The trend in Afghanistan is that there are two sides to the coin, but each side comes equipped with it's own side of problems. The schools are put up with great success in the main village of Marjah, but in a school nearby there are no children. The Marines hate to be stuck on the base without being able to do their job, but every week yields more killed in action on these patrols outside the wire.
As my time gets shorter here, I long for more time to tell more stories, but when three months is over I think I'll be ready to take a break. Last night I lay in bed thinking about pizza and the image of a lovely slice kept me awake as I seemed to not be able to think of anything else. It seems the little things are what affect me the most here. I talked to another Marine last night who agreed with me. Just one real meal, or Internet or a phone call gives you another jolt of energy.
I am getting ready to head back to Echo Company and will be back at the District Center in Marjah to cover the elections.

New stories are posted almost every couple of days at KVAL.com

Another Day, Another Mission

Only red lights of headlamps show up in the darkness. I am jumpy, there are rats in my tent and I’m all alone. Down by the shitters the burn pit’s light flickers across the berms of sand, I stop to stare at the clusters of stars brighter, more vibrant in this sky, only the light of the fire in the background illuminates anything here on earth. The smell is too awful to stick around.
The air is cooling off and the black night makes you believe you could see anything, a Marine walks beside me, or maybe it’s just a shadow. In the tents beyond, Marines are watching movies or looking at pictures of their fiancés on their screen savers. A mission awaits us in the morning. Some will go to the bazaar, some to different companies, some will go out into the fields and receive fire and hopefully everyone will come home, meaning our home here at the base.

I am wondering how much I am missing back home because I know everyone there is missing so much here.


Yesterday KVAL published on their website www.kval.com, a story about female Marines in Afghanistan. The first thing I remember when meeting these two women, was that they were so thin, with delicate features and they looked so young, so untouched by their harsh surroundings. But within as few days I realized that that their looks betrayed them. They have been here since March. As a firefight begun just outside the base walls one of the female Marines, shrugged and said it happens all the time. Then I saw her running laps in the sun just before noon.
The next day the females had a mission, they would go out into the nearby village and engage with the people. They spoke with the children, with the old men and the women. But they seemed older now, sweaty and bits of sand sticking to their cheeks. And they walked through the streets with heavy weapons in their arms and sometimes it was hard to tell them apart from any other Marines except for slighter figures and telltale buns sticking out beneath helmets.

Read more about their story at: KATU.com and KVAL.com